Life is Short: The Collected Short Fiction of Shawn Inmon

by Shawn Inmon

  Naturally, as the great man had shuffled off this mortal coil in Alabama, I had long ago read the entirety of the Mobile Beacon and the Birmingham Times for each day in the months of August through December, of the year he died, including personal and classified ads. You never know when you might stumble upon a coded message in such places. I believed that there might be some kernel of a mention of the great man and the recordings he left behind. A clue to build a dream on. Hundreds of hours of searching turned up nothing but the small obituary several days after his genius fell silent forever.

  I then broadened my search to the weekly Sun Mountain Reporter in Albertville, The Opelika-Auburn News, The Southern Star in Ozark, and had just opened the August 14 edition of the Andalusia Star-News, when a tiny article caught my attention. Headlined "Local Woman Mourns Wolf," it briefly mentioned that August Wolf had passed away recently, and that he had once had a Top 40 hit. Most of the piece showed knowledge of the giant's career inferior to my own, but the last paragraph included a quote from Adelaide Simper: "He passed so suddenly, I still have the tape of the album he had just recorded. Don’t know what to do with it. Guess no one cares nothing about it, now."

  I was, quite understandably, thunderstruck. After searching for decades, I finally had a small but concrete bit of proof that the lost Wolf album had existed at one time. I had one clue to go on: Adelaide Simper. Thank God she was not a Mary Smith or Jane Jones, or I would have had no idea how to begin searching for her. I had already used up my daily hour of free Internet at the Los Angeles Public Library, trading written jousts with a nincompoop from Atlanta who announced his audacity and imbecility by claiming that Elvis Presley was the greatest singer of the 20th century.

  However, after another bus ride, I found the free Internet at the local branch of the West Covina library quite helpful in tracking her down. Within the hour, I had learned that Miss Adelaide Simper still lived in Wetumpka, Alabama. According to the public records of the Elmore County Auditor, she still lived at 1417 Outhlacoochee Street, where she had resided since the property had passed into her name in 1963.

  My hands were still shaking by the time I got home, took Mother’s credit card from her wallet, and booked the next available flight to Mobile, Alabama. In order to have some necessary pocket money, I took our silver candlesticks, Father’s coin collection, and Mother’s good jewelry to the West Covina Pawn Shop. No one was using any of them anyway; the coins had been gathering dust since Father's death in 1978. I was surprised at the value people place on little gold tidbits and old coins, but I was pleased to be flush for the trip ahead.

  I took a cab from the airport in Mobile to the Greyhound bus station, as I didn’t have a driver’s license, which is necessary to rent a car. Four and a half hours later, after a forced tour of every town with a population higher than ten, the bus pulled into the Wetumpka bus station. The reality matched the fantasy those words might engender.

  When I took my first step off the air-conditioned bus into the Alabama evening, my first thought was that someone must be playing a practical joke on me. A wave of sticky heat blasted me across the face, breaking me out in a sweat that did not cease until I left Wetumpka. I do not understand why anyone would make a voluntary decision to live in such a place.

  I carried what had once been Father’s suitcase across the street to the Wetumpka Café. This tiny diner had three tables, a series of bar stools at the counter, and no shortage of large, black flies. I sat in a plastic chair at a plastic table that would have felt more at home on the patio of a single-wide mobile home, and was surprised to see only three items on the menu: Breakfast, Dinner, and Supper. My attempt to ascertain what each of those items might include, along with the difference between Dinner and Supper, was rebuffed, as it was after 4:00 PM, and the only choice currently on offer was Supper.

  That turned out to be less odious than it might have. The large waitress's name tag proclaimed that her name was Rhonda. With small peglike teeth and a mole on her chin the size of a quarter, Rhonda was not easy to look at, but I did not have to look for long.

  Soon she set before me a plate overflowing with chicken fried steak–which, notably, was not chicken at all–corn on the cob, mashed potatoes, and a slab of cornbread that threatened to tip the plate askew, all for $4.95 plus tax and tip. It occurred to me that prices were very different in small-town Alabama than in L.A. County, where I paid more than that for a double half-caff latte with two shots of espresso.

  As I ate, my eyes fell on the only reading material on offer: The Pretty Penny, a folded piece of green paper with a drawing of a cartoonish penny. It featured quizzes (Who was the nineteenth President of the United States?), recipes (Eleven things to do with leftover grits), and classified ads. I knew Rutherford B. Hayes was the nineteenth President of the U.S., but I wasn’t sure what a grit was, so my eye fell on the classified ads. Amid the lawn mowers and china sets listed for sale was an ad for a room to rent by the day or by the week. I was astonished to recognize the address: 1417 Outhlacoochee Street–the address I had written down and carried in my pocket as belonging to Adelaide Simper. I asked Rhonda and her remarkable mole (which I decided not to address by name, since it lacked its own name tag, nor any indication of its gender or surname) where I could find Outhlacoochee Street.

  Happily, and like everything in Wetumpka, it was only a short walk away.

  Although the chicken fried steak was excellent, with my elusive target suddenly so near, I lost the remainder of my appetite. I gathered up Father’s suitcase and stepped back into the vile misery of what passed for a pleasant early spring day in southern Alabama.

  The house that claimed that address could kindly be described as ramshackle, although “deteriorating from abject neglect” was probably more accurate. It was two stories tall and looked to have once been a lovely house in another era, perhaps the Jurassic.

  Whatever the era, it had passed. Various greenery and vines crawled up the sides of the house, obscuring many of the windows. It seemed as if they threatened to grasp and pull the entire roof down. The few screens that still clung to the house did so haphazardly, as though they could give up the fight at any moment. The blue exterior paint suggested that the most recent coat had been applied during FDR's first term, and the walkway that led from the city sidewalk to the house looked as though it had been the target of repeated bombing runs shortly thereafter. In the front window was a small, faded sign that read, “Room for Let.”

  It was perfect.

  I smoothed my hair, wished that I could wring the gallons of moisture out of my shirt, fixed my most charming smile to my face, and picked my way up the fragmented walkway to the front porch. The classic Southern wraparound porch had surely once hosted leisurely afternoon naps and glasses of frosted lemonade or mint juleps. Now it was a condominium project for wasps and feral cats. I did my best not to introduce myself to either and knocked on the door.

  A moon-faced woman answered. I feel I owe Luna an apology for that descriptor. Her bleary eyes questioned me from behind a pair of glasses that had been in vogue during the Eisenhower administration. She wore a faded pink housecoat which struggled to cover her impressive girth. Her mottled gray and black hair stuck out in so many directions, it looked like unappealing fireworks.

  “Good afternoon, Madam,” I said, maintaining my sincere smile.

  “We don’t want none,” she said, and began to close the door. I barely had time to step forward and put a foot strategically between the door and the frame, which in any other person might have caused alarm.

  “Pardon me, I didn’t make myself clear. I was eating at the charming diner in town, when I came upon an advertisement for lodging, which listed this address.”

  She blinked twice. Comprehension was far away. I would have to pierce this leaden intellect with clarity.

  “I’m hoping to rent a room,” I said, hopefully.

  “Oh!” Perhaps I had been unjust. A well-coiffed prospective lodger showing up at the door migh
t not be even an annual event. A moment of adjustment could be pardoned.

  “Can I inquire as to how much a room for the evening would be?”

  She thrust several of her chins over her shoulder and yelled, “Ma! Somebody’s at the door! He wants to know how much it is to rent a room!”

  I heard an ominous sliding/thumping sound from the back of the house. Dreadful suspense built in me as I waited to see what creature made this unlikely noise. After several minutes of trying not to count the large lady's prominent chin whiskers, a wispy, elderly woman appeared pushing a walker that had two tennis balls covering the ends of the front two legs. She wore yoga pants, slippers, and a t-shirt with Wetumpka Junior High School Athletics across the front. With each step, she slid the walker forward, took half a step, then inexplicably lifted the device and dropped it against the carpet with a muffled thud. Patchy white hair mostly covered her scalp, but her bright and intelligent eyes stood in welcome contrast to the burnt-out bulbs in her daughter's. She looked me over from my freshly parted hair to my blue blazer with gold buttons to my grey slacks and tasseled brown shoes. Her daughter waddled away. In the background, I heard a televised female voice ask to purchase a vowel, much to the approval of a studio audience.

  “You’re not from around here, are you?” Her voice was raspy, stained by a million cigarettes.

  “No, ma’am. I’m from California.”

  Her eyes told me what she thought of California. “Room’s twenty dollars a night. You allergic to cats?”

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Good, cuz we’ve got a passel of ‘em around here.”

  My nose had certainly noticed. "It won't be a problem for me."

  “How long you wantin’ to stay?”

  “I can’t be sure. I have some research to do at the library.”

  What might have begun as a laugh soon devolved into a hacking cough that threatened to take her down. She leaned against her walker as the laughing/coughing fit ran its course. When she looked up, tears leaked from her eyes. “Have you seen our library? ‘Tain’t much. Can’t imagine anyone spending more than ten minutes inside there.”

  I took a gamble.

  “I’m here doing research on August Wolf. I know he lived in the area at the end of his life, and I’m writing a book about him.”

  A window closed in her eyes. She turned away, calling over her shoulder, “Twenty dollars a night, paid in advance. Give it to Patricia. She’ll show you to your room.” With several more slide-thumps, she disappeared around the corner. I produced my bankroll, hoping to elicit a reaction, but she seemed not to notice. The woman on the TV set asked for an R. I peeled off two twenties and handed them to Patricia, explaining: “I’ll be here at least two nights. If I’m going to stay longer, I’ll be sure to pay in advance.”

  Patricia nodded, otherwise motionless in her attention to the game show. “G’up the stairs. Room's the second one on the left. I put the coffee on for Mom about eight, but this ain’t no bed and breakfast.”

  “Of course not, thank you. That will be lovely.” I stepped further inside and glanced around. Faded and stained red carpeting, ratty drapes, missing slats on the bannister, peeling green wallpaper, stacks of magazines and garbage everywhere. And the smell! Like wet laundry left to mold, then cooked up with a batch of rat turds. The house looked and reeked like the starter kit for an episode of Hoarders.

  I wondered how bad my room would be, but when I opened the second door on the left I was pleasantly surprised. The room was musty, and there was a layer of dust on every flat surface, but overall the room approached livability. I wouldn’t have to go to the hardware store for goggles and a filter mask before I bedded down for the night.

  I didn’t feel like tackling a conversation with either of my hostesses, so I laid on the bed and cracked open one of my favorite books: the seminal Influences of August Wolf, by yours truly. It was worth my while to marvel at the reality: I was about to sleep in the same house that the great man himself once did. The vibrations were uncanny.

  I awoke the next morning and accepted the previously offered cup of watery coffee from Patricia, then set off on a walk around town. That was an excellent way to kill fifteen minutes, as the town was so small you could pitch a baseball from one end to the other, if your arm was good enough.

  At 9:00 on the dot, I made my way to the Wetumpka Public Library.

  Before I even stepped inside, I understood Miss Simper’s mirth at the notion of doing research there. The library itself took up one half of the Wetumpka Soak ‘n Suds. On the right side of the building there were half a dozen washers and dryers, and on the left, two parallel bookshelves that held an ancient, mostly-complete set of World Book Encyclopedias, several stacks of National Geographic magazines, and a motley collection of Harlequin Romance and Doc Savage paperbacks. Even before the Internet era, the absurdity of my research notions would have been obvious.

  I swam through the early morning heat and humidity to the Wetumpka Café. Having contrived to provide the only available food in the town, this establishment had a monopoly on my appetite for the foreseeable future.

  Rhonda, her mole even more impressive in the morning light, set the same menu down in front of me. It had the same three choices as the day before—Breakfast, Dinner, or Supper. I made eye contact with her and said, “Breakfast?” She nodded and turned back to the grill. Apparently, she served as the first shift short-order cook as well. By the size of her shoulders, I guessed that she could also have served as security guard and bouncer with no difficulty.

  Try as I continue to do, I will never erase from my mind what I saw next. Rhonda reached a spatula into a dirty yellow bucket, scooped out a serving of lard that was approximately one hundred times the recommended daily amount of everything, and slapped it on the grill. I averted my eyes. A tour of the sausage factory will often end one’s enjoyment of that tasty treat, and as this appeared to be my only source of sustenance unless I wanted to eat fried chicken prepared in a gas station, I vowed to remain ignorant of the process.

  Forty-five minutes later, stuffed like a Christmas goose and only four dollars poorer, I made my way back to my lodging. Picking my way up the rubble-strewn walkway, I was facing a dilemma. Would I need to knock to once again to gain entry, or did my payment for two days allow free in and out privileges? Feeling a need to establish my strength, I steeled myself for possible rebuke and pushed my way in without knocking.

  The house was dead quiet. The television in the living room, which I had thought was perpetually on, was silent. One of the heavy curtains in the dining room was askew, allowing a blaze of sunlight to cut through the gloom. It illuminated a constant swirl of dust particles soon destined to join their kin on every surface. I cleared my throat to announce myself to what might have been an empty house. As I was preparing to go up to my room, I heard the slide-thump, slide-thump of Ms. Simper’s walker.

  After sixty seconds, she appeared around the corner of the dining room. She was wearing the exact same clothes as the day before. She adjusted her cats-eye glasses and fixed me with a shrewd stare. “What did you say your name was?”

  “Oh, how rude of me,” I said. “I didn’t properly introduce myself.” In case my fame had reached even this remote corner of the globe, I didn’t want to reveal who I was. I needed to think up a lie, and think it up quick. “I’m Justin Bieber.”

  I admit I am not very good at thinking a lie up quickly.

  She arched her eyebrows at me and shook her head. I couldn’t tell if it was palsy or disgust. "Well, bless your heart.”

  Somehow that kindly phrase carried the freight of insult.

  “Come on into the living room, Justin. I have a few things to discuss that I think you might be interested in.”

  I followed her into the living room. She slide-thumped herself into position to sit down in an overstuffed chair, sending new geysers of dust into the air. She seemed not to notice. I sat much more gingerly on the sofa opposite her.

&nbs
p; She stared at me so long, I was concerned she had fallen asleep with her eyes open. Just to make conversation, I said, “Is Patricia not home?”

  “Nah, she works down at the radio station three days a week.”

  “Oh, really? A disc jockey?”

  She narrowed her eyes until they were nothing but slits. “Did you not see her yesterday? If that girl ever tried to speak her mind, she’d be speechless. She just works down there pushin’ buttons. There’s no real deejays at that place any more. They bring everything in from the satellite behind the station. She just makes sure they’re not all talkin’ over each other.”

  I wasn’t sure how to react to this malignment of her daughter, so I smiled as widely as I could manage. “Oh, I see.”

  “Let me ask you, Justin, how was your research at our library? Did you manage to catch up on your laundry at the same time?”

  I felt heat rise in my cheeks. I hate to be caught in the occasional white lie.

  “Ah. That. Well, no. The facilities at the library were somewhat below the standard I had been told I could expect.”

  “Or maybe that was never your plan at all?”

  I froze.

  Adelaide leaned forward, which caused a fortuitous coughing fit, which in turn gave me time to regain my composure. Before I could speak, she did. “Reckon your act has got all stale, Justin. Or would you rather I called you by your right name, Lawrence?”

  I almost shat myself.

  "You don’t look exactly like your picture on your website, but I'm not the fool you seem to reckon I am. Even in Wetumpka, we've heard of that little brat. We even got real plumbin' an' teevee'ta look at,” she added, troweling on the drawl.

  She could no doubt see me flush again, as I have a habit of doing in tense situations.

  “It’s a little too much of a coincidence that you show up here at my house, wanting to rent a room, while also having a number of books written about my Augie.”

  My Augie. The words echoed in my head, driving away all embarrassment at being caught in another lie, and it sank in that I was staring at someone who had known August Wolf in a way that I never would. Biblically, yes, but also intimately. My knowledge, as far-reaching as it was, came from album sleeves, obscure reference encyclopedias, and microfiche. Hers came through warm breath sharing the same pillow.